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After you take a look at our list of 5 countries that have the most drones, you will be convinced that the future is already here.

Originally used for military purposes, drones have found various commercial applications in recent years. Now the number of drones being used commercially surpasses the number used for the military. According to the rough estimations, by 2015 more than million commercial drones were sold. Beside their recreational use, they can have important functions like data gathering, surveillance, search, and rescue. They are being used for deliveries as well. Amazon is one of the first companies that uses drones to deliver small packages to its customers. This is where that “future” part kicks in. If you want to know more about drones, check out our article Eyes in the Sky: 10 Things You Need to Know About Drones.

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The military use of drones is more complex. At first, they were only used for gathering information and surveillance. However, nowadays drones have the ability to perform attacks and even destroy the enemy’s air defense. Having that in mind, it is evident that drones are future of warfare. They can be efficient and remove danger to human life out of the equation (at least on the side that is controlling the drone). Depending on their function, the cost of military drones can reach more than $10 million.

As you can see, the drones are a desirable asset for any countries, so their number is growing rapidly. To get our list of 5 countries that have the most drones we have used data about a number of the drone stocks per country from the International Institute for Strategic Studies published by the Guardian. Keep in mind that these numbers should be used for orientation since lots of countries aren’t willing to discover the full information. The real numbers of drones in each country are much bigger. Also, it is important to mention that the numbers weren’t accessible for Russia, China, and Turkey, which is probably the only reason they didn’t find its place on this list. Without further ado, let’s which are the countries that have the most drones!

5. France

Number of Drones: 23

France’s Army relies on native made medium drones Sperwer developed by SAGEM. You may be familiar with this company from their low cost (and low quality) mobile phones. But Sperwer gained quite of a reputation being able to stay in flight for 5 hours and send data from the distance of 90 miles. Alongside 20 Sperwer drones, France has 3 heavy Harfang drones used by the Air Force.